Daria (10) and her slightly older friend Melania chatted for hours on the phone, even though they lived close to each other in an apartment complex in the town of Kryvyi Rih. It was about things that all kids and teens talk about. About boyfriends, no doubt, about music, about school and about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Dancer or maybe a doctor.
The girls also called each other last Sunday evening. They stopped at 10:30 PM, after Melania’s mother Tanja had asked them to do so a few times. The girls had to go to bed. ‘See you tomorrow dear Melania….see you tomorrow dear Daria‘. It turned out to be a final farewell.
It was a Russian missile that hit the girls’ apartment complex last Monday morning, Melania’s mother Tanja tells RTL News. Tanja realized right away that it was all wrong. The rocket had hit the house of her friend Natalja and her daughter Daria. “I called and texted immediately after the explosion. There was no answer.” A huge hole had been punched in the flat, as shown in the photo below.
Terrible confirmation
Tanja hoped they would still be alive but felt despair rising. Daria and her mother wouldn’t be dead, would they? It was hours before she got the terrible confirmation, through mutual friends. “We were in shock, still can’t believe it. We are inconsolable, especially Melania.”
Daria and Melania had been best friends for years, says Tanja. “They spent all their free time together. They walked to school and back together every day, Daria was in 4th grade and Melania was in 6th grade.” Even when the war started, they continued to do the things they loved. Dancing together at dance school Renaissance, doing gymnastics and just talking and giggling. On the bench in front of their house.
When they weren’t together, they kept in touch. Texting, sending photos, videos, says Tanja. “They made each other happy.” The girls kept in touch after they fled abroad with their mothers after the outbreak of war. “We went to Germany, they to Poland.”
Because it seemed a bit safer in Ukraine, they recently returned to Kryvyi Rih. They didn’t want their lives run by the Russians. “We dreamed of being together again and living like before,” says Tanja. But it wasn’t to be. A Russian missile put an end to all dreams, just as rockets, bombs and bullets have cost the lives of thousands of innocent civilians.
Sweet girl
“Daria was such a sweet girl and Natalja a loyal friend,” concludes Tanja. The mothers and daughters helped each other, pulled each other through the hard times.
Tanja’s daughter Melania can’t stop crying. Who should she turn to now to vent her heart? Who does she have to dance with and walk to school with now? Her mother doesn’t know: “We have to go on but it’s hard.”
1577 civilians killed by Russian missiles
Monday morning, July 31, two Russian ballistic missiles hit an apartment complex and a university building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih. That is the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Six people were killed, including 10-year-old Daria and her mother Natalya.
Since the start of the war, 1,463 incidents have been recorded of Russian missiles being fired at targets in populated areas. 1577 civilians were killed, reports the independent organization Action On Armed Violence (AOAV).
2023-08-03 13:39:51
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